Out from under the wreckage of closed venues and cancelled gigs, Sydney’s unruly punk trio, Crocodylus are hurtling toward the end of the year with a new tour and a scattering of new tunes.
After holing themselves up in the idyllic and icy regional town of Ginkin, NSW, fuelled by a burning fire and plenty of Fireball, the band have come up with a riotous new album set to be released in 2021.
Meanwhile, their upcoming The Social Climber Tour, which will see the Crocs performing at venues across NSW in November and December, stands as a taster for what’s to come and a chance for Crocs fans to relish new singles “Social Climber” and “Camouflage”.
Before they fully jumped into tour mode, band members Mikel, Josh and Stephen shared a peek into their humble stay in Ginkin back in August, where they recorded the new album, the music videos for “Camouflage” and “Social Climber” and got up to some classic Crocs mischief.
“This was a one corner of the “Live Room” which was essentially the living room with all the lounges taken out and moved into other rooms. We spent the majority of the days here just jamming and recording different ideas and songs we had. We used the Zoom H6 which you can see in the middle of the room as a fuss free way to record the room; and also have mics on the guitar amp and bass amp. It was really freeing doing the recordings out here.”
“We had the chance to even jump on our instruments really late at night without fear of pissing anyone off, a lifetime of restraint made this very exciting! The room wasn’t built acoustically for any of this too, it was really just a sketch pad, getting the ideas out of the brain and onto something in the physical world (meatspace) to then elaborate on and experiment with further.” – Mikel
“Oh man, this thing kept us going. It gave us purpose! Always chopping wood, maintaining the fire. It was the only way to keep warm and we got pretty good at the whole thing, going outside with a beer and haphazardly chopping some logs. Narrowing, avoiding our toes and other sensitive extremities, bringing the wood in, setting it up and making sure it roared all night. That was another goal of this writing trip, to sorta be out in a place where things needed to be more manual, more organic, no phones, no real distractions. It worked well for us, we really exceeded our expectations with how much material we came up with. Can’t wait for people to hear it.” – Mikel
“It was utter bliss being out there, with just your mates for company. As fans of sunsets and skylines in general (who isn’t?) we got treated to a lovely array of sights, really felt like the old rock and roll bands of yore, going out something remote, stripping away unwanted and unnecessary vestiges of 21st century living. Really freeing and relaxed environment, any sort of stress and expectation we had about the productivity of the trip melted away like the frost on the grass every morning when on the first day of proper jamming we smashed out ten songs or something outrageous. That’s when we really started to just vibe out and enjoy it once that pressure of “will anything come out of this?” abated. Cheers to this photo of me cheers’ing the sky and the lovely countryside.” – Mikel
“Me and the man behind the lens. Jamieson came up for the last night and day and we shot the clips for “Camouflage” and “Social Climber”. We shot Camo at night and had been drinking Fireball all day. So we kinda came up with everything on the day. We got real lucky with the snow on Social as you can see in the clip!” – Josh
“Our humble abode for the week. Really miss it actually. Nothing like playing music and drinking beers in such a serene location with ya best buds. It was located on the blue mountains and the shops were about half an hour away so we had to get creative with our limited cooking skills.” – Josh
“Coupla muscly boys. Things got a bit weird this night. The cold hit hard and the fireball hit harder. After dinner each night we’d smoke a joint and watch Flight of the Conchords. Like clockwork.” – Josh
“As you can see from this one it was pretty cold. Apparently, Oberon is the coldest place in Australia? Lucky we are tough boys.” – Josh
“A shot of an excited, get focused Jamieson who struck gold with the snowfall on our last day there on Sunday. We all rushed outside to shoot the video for Social Climber because we knew our time was short. Sure enough, an hour after the shoot all the snow had stopped falling and had completely melted. Very lucky!” – Stephen
“The difference 24 hours of a change in the weather makes. For what was a week of staring into a nice open meadow while writing, we awoke to the snowfall that ended up covering the whole mountain side. It felt like another country and for most of us, it was our first time seeing legit snow in Australia.” – Stephen
“A reflection of our week budget and diet for food. From what started out strong with salads, salmon dishes, bolognese and curry, the last days dwindled down to eating the remains with no waste. A lot of eggs, chips, beer and plenty of sausages were consumed. Watch our cholesterol!!” – Stephen
Due to the amount of time and re-runs of shots, video shoots always tend to get a bit silly with the croc boys. This, however, was silliness and excitement being stoked with the snow and environment. And also feeling like we were either in an old war film or Help! by the Beatles. Just needed some sleds and doobies and chiming along to Ticket to Ride to re-live it hahaha. – Stephen
“Social Climber / Camouflage” is out now from Bargain Bin Records. Grab a copy of the limited edition 7″ coloured vinyl HERE. The Crocodylus Social Climber tour kicks off this week in Wollongong (full dates below).
You can keep up to date with Crocodylus on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The Social Climber Tour Dates
Friday November 20 | Wollongong Uni Bar, Wollongong
Saturday November 21 | Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Thursday December 3 | The Northern, Byron Bay
Saturday December 5 |The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Tickets are available HERE.
